Neighbourhood change and spatial polarization: The roles of increasing inequality and divergent urban development

Tal Modai-Snir,Maarten Van Ham

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2018.05.009

Tal Modai-Snir, Maarten Van Ham

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2018.05.009

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Abstract

Most studies of neighbourhood and urban change do not distinguish between different underlying processes. This study distinguishes between the effect of increasing inequality between neighbourhoods and the effect of exchanges in their relative positions which can be attributed to urban development processes. The paper identifies the relative roles of these processes in generating neighbourhood socioeconomic change in the Tel-Aviv metropolitan area in Israel, and analyses how they interacted in reshaping its socio-spatial structure. Tel-Aviv is an interesting case study because of a persistent north-south socioeconomic divide. During the research period (1995–2008) inequality in Israel has risen substantially following the integration in the global economy; at the same time, the metropolitan area went through extensive urban development and expansion to the rural fringe. To examine the contributions associated with increasing inequality and urban-development processes to neighbourhood income change we use a method that was originally presented in the context of individual income mobility and recently applied in the context of neighbourhood change. The results show that urban processes and inequality intensified the historical divide in different ways, and each factor can be associated with a typical spatial pattern. The interaction between the factors is diverse; in some places they reinforced each other, whereas in some they operated at opposite directions and offset each other.

Highlights

One of the greatest concerns regarding contemporary cities is the decades-long upsurge in their internal socio-spatial inequalities
During the research period (1995–2008) inequality in Israel has risen substantially following the integration in the global economy; at the same time, the metropolitan area went through extensive urban development and expansion to the rural fringe
Our analysis focuses on how socioeconomic changes across the whole array of metropolitan neighbourhoods shaped the metropolitan socio-spatial structure, and how urban processes and increasing inequality distinctly contributed to these changes

Summary

Introduction

One of the greatest concerns regarding contemporary cities is the decades-long upsurge in their internal socio-spatial inequalities. Other scholars challenged the role of globalisation in shaping socio-spatial structures They contended that increasing inequalities due to globalisation may have an effect on urban areas, but that this discourse overstates the importance of such macro processes (van Kempen, 2007; Marcuse & Van Kempen, 2011). Processes of urban development, which are related to social dynamics, the aging of the housing stock, metropolitan expansion, planning and policies, have a more ambiguous effect They change the relative attractiveness of neighbourhoods, and make them move upward or downward in relative socioeconomic positions. Two types of change processes in the sociospatial structure can be distinguished: Changes in the metropolitan distribution of neighbourhood socioeconomic characteristics, and changes in the way socioeconomic groups are spread out across metropolitan space The former are related to increasing inequality within urban areas due to economic restructuring that occurs beyond the urban level. The two sections provide a more detailed explanation of the two types of processes

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